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I want to create custom new languages. On-premise or IaaS I can use https://marketplace.sitecore.net/en/Modules/Custom_Language_Registration.aspx to register a new language.
Does anyone have some knowledge adding custom language to Sitecore Azure Web Apps?
The very unfortunate answer to this question is that you can't (at least not as of the writing of this answer).
Per this blog post, dated June 2018:
You cannot, at this moment, create a custom culture on an Azure App Service. Cultures are part of the standard operating system and require changes to the registry to modify or add them. An Azure App Service runs in a sandbox which does not allow code or script to modify the registry. I do not work on the team responsible for this Windows feature, but I have confidence the team puts lots of diligence into providing the fundamental capabilities to match the requirements of most global cultures.
It goes on to say:
There is some support for language packs on IIS which I write about here. In this case, you need to install a language pack for the language you want to respond in and the language pack does include the translated version of the IIS errors. But, you cannot install language packs on an Azure App Service platform yourself. To find which language packs are on an Azure App Service instance, you can access KUDU/SCM and dup the contents of the D:\inetpub\custerr directory.
This is how I've overcome the custom culture restriction in Azure Web Apps by using URL Rewrite from IIS. Here's a snippet from /App_Config/UrlRewriteAndRedirects.config
<rule name="RewriteCustomCultures" enabled="true">
<match url="^(/?)en-(jp)(/?)(.*)?" />
<action type="Rewrite" url="en-{CustomCultures:{R:2}}/{R:4}" appendQueryString="true" />
</rule>
Here's a snippet from /App_Config/RewriteMaps.config
<rule name="RewriteCustomCultures" enabled="true">
<match url="^(/?)en-(jp)(/?)(.*)?" />
<action type="Rewrite" url="en-{CustomCultures:{R:2}}/{R:4}" appendQueryString="true" />
</rule>
Link Provider
The Link Provider must also be modified so that the the URL's generated will use custom cultures instead of the "real" culture inside Sitecore.
Other Culture Info and Localisation
The culture that you have selected may not have the correct number formatting, date / time formatting, Default Calendar Type used (eg. Gregorian, Lunar), or currency formatting. In Windows 10 Control Panel -> Region -> Additional Settings, every single setting that can be overridden can be seen clearly.
You will need to build additional functionality to override each of the settings. Our solution includes having an override checkbox as a configuration Sitecore item for that language to store the exact same settings as Windows Region settings.
Migrating the content
Now that the solution in place, the content needs to be migrated from one culture to another. To ensure that existing content and Sitecore item language versions remain in tact with the appropriate workflow still in place, I have opted to migrate the content directly using Update SQL queries on the master and publishing target databases.
The queries are straight forward, just go through every single SQL Table with the Language column, and change en-JP to en-JM. As the content is changed without going through Sitecore, Content Search indexes, Link Databases and Dictionary file are going to be out of sync and rebuild is required. So make sure you have allocated enough content freeze time for this task. We left this running overnight in the production instance.
Please check out my blog post https://medium.com/@Vincent_Lui/sitecore-cloud-migration-from-on-premise-to-microsoft-azure-platform-as-a-service-paas-part-2-9e1cdff2fbd2
Do shout out if this helps you resolve the problem.
One of my colleagues wrote this up as a way to shortcut adding a bunch of new cultures...our project required a bunch of "en-XX" for English versions that didn't exist. This talks about setting up a console app, but I wonder if the principle couldn't be modified into a class library that could be run as a web service call to activate?
http://www.integryx.net/post/2018/02/19/add-a-custom-language-definition-to-sitecore
Note, I've not tested this, so I don't know if it'll work for you, but it's programmatic so you can at least get it onto the app service (versus the standard tool I found on the Sitecore marketplace).
